


Keith's colours were blooming across Lance's skin: Keith liked it a lot

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Agender Character, Guilt, Loss, Love Confessions, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Really Character Death, Other, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7449946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only a week after Lance's death, that Allura announces that they need a new pilot for Blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keith's colours were blooming across Lance's skin: Keith liked it a lot

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual, this is a mess. Also, if I get anything wrong (characterisation, grammar, canon) please tell me in the comments.  
> Pidge uses they pronouns

It's only a week after Lance's death, that Allura announces that they need a new pilot for Blue.  

Keith's reaction is somber, his anger is cold and dead, and instead of rushing through his body for a mere amount of seconds, it settles into his bone marrow and replaces every cell with hate. He doesn't protest, in fact, he doesn't do anything but glare at the ground, hoping it would break and pull him under into hell, where he could be with Lance again. 

"Where do we start?" Shiro asks, he sounds exhausted, and he looks it too. He's leaning onto the walls of the castle, his knees bent and ready to crash to the floor. His eyes are expressionless, threatening to close and never open again. He's so tired, and Keith can relate. 

"It's difficult, since the Blue Lion has it's own tastes, and is probably still in a stage of mourning," Coran replied, his voice not as upbeat as normal. Though, Keith supposed, he was handling it better than everyone else. 

"So, it's just trail and error?" Pidge asks in disbelief, they can't fathom how someone like Lance could be replaced. He was so much, yet so little and Pidge doesn't understand how everyone was agreeing to it, how they were agreeing to it. But then they remembered, the universe's fate rested in their hands: somebody like Lance couldn't match up to the whole universe, no matter how much the team wanted him to. 

"Unfortunately, yes," Allura told them, and everyone half expected her to go on a tangent like she usually does, but instead she fell silent. Sitting on the chair beside her, she brought her knees to her chest and opened her mouth to say something sentimental, something meaningful about Lance. 

Keith didn't want to hear it, so he left. 

* * *

 

Keith didn't expect himself to be so immature, when Blue finally got a new pilot. He always thought it'd be better to work with someone who wasn't constantly trying to either get on your nerves or figure you out. He always thought that, even though he was crippled with guilt and loss, he'd be kind to Voltron's newest team member. 

He was wrong. 

She wasn't annoying and she never got in his way with anything, but there was something about her that made his stomach churn. She was melodramatic like Lance was, she was always talking with extravagant hand gestures like Lance did and it twisted Keith's insides until all he was was anger. 

He refused to speak with her, refused to sit anywhere near her, refused to back her up when fighting the Galra. He knew it was wrong, deep in his mind he knew he shouldn't be treating a teammate this way. He knew it was messing up the team in all sorts of shapes and forms. 

They couldn't form Voltron anymore, they were useless against the Galra. 

He got all sorts of hassle from Shiro, and he expected that Hunk and Pidge were talking behind his back. He didn't blame them. He was stupid, immature and bitter. Everyone else was over Lance, so why wasn't he? 

Keith's fingers pressed against the small letter in the palm of his hands. The writing was messy, scribbles and doodles taking up the corners of the sheet. He couldn't stop reading it, everywhere he went, the small piece of paper was either etched into his mind or buried into the pockets of his jeans. 

It was a love confession, it was cheesy or sweet, but instead it was covered with guilt, pain and pining. It contained all of the feelings Lance thought necessary to hide. Keith hated it, he hated how it reminded him how much Lance couldn't trust him, couldn't confide in him. Yet, he didn't have the will to do anything but metaphorically sow it to his heart. 

* * *

 

Maria did her best to befriend Keith, she was close to everyone on the team, everyone adored her like everyone adored Lance. While Keith was no longer bitter towards her, she reminded him of what could have been if Keith had been there, if Keith had waited a while longer before cruising off to battle a Galra with twice the experience and power than himself. 

He kept a distance from her, and it seemed that the only one who minded was her. 

"Hey, erm, Keith? I've got something for you," Maria erupted one afternoon, her hair messy from where Pidge's fingers had wound through the strands. At least Keith could admit, that they were a cute couple. 

Keith was wordless as he stood up, putting the love confession in his book as a bookmark before slinging the bulky book under his arm and following her. 

He followed her outside, to the orange/red planet they had been inhabiting for a couple of days. She was jumpy, her fingers picking at the dry skin on the back of her hands. 

"So, we didn't really get off to a great start, y'know, with the whole 'replacing your soulmate' thing, but I think I can make it up to you," She announced and Keith could feel the anger sweeping through his bones, making his mouth a prisoner to sly remarks and his body twitch with irritation. 

"It's a myth," He snarls, and before he can say another word, Pidge is by his side, holding his arm tightly between their fingers. 

"It's possible, not with every case, but it's possible. I wouldn't have let her do this if it wasn't a possibility," Pidge spoke, still holding Keith's arms back: the anger was still present in his bones and he wasn't sure he could stop it. He wasn't sure he could stop the rising hope either, and suddenly he wished he really was emotionless, like so many had suggested.  

"The body must be under a year old, it must be aged between 5-20 and it must have a purpose to live on," Pidge told him, and for a moment Keith relaxed into the hope that Lance could be brought back, before his mind shook him into reality and asked him what Lance's purpose could be. 

"We've already convinced the elders to perform the ritual," Shiro spoke from behind him, and suddenly everything is fitting into place. The planet (Apollo, the Greek mythology obsessed Maria liked to call it) was not in danger, and didn't need to be saved from the Galra or any other movable source. They had planned this all along, and Keith didn't know whether to be thankful that they wanted Lance back as much as he did, or angry that he wasn't a part of it. 

"Though I must warn you all, Lance might look a little different to how you remember him," Allura told them with Hunk and Coran on either side of her, and Keith wants to ask how everyone seems to be creeping up on him. Though more than that, he wants a guarantee that Lance will be by his side in a day or two. 

"I don't want false hope," It's mumbled but they all heard it loud and clear. They were all silent as they heaved Lance's body to the town where the cherry coloured aliens lived. 

* * *

 

The aliens insisted that Lance had to wake with them, they told them that Lance was to be a part of their race, a part of their language and that the best way to explain this to him, was to speak to him themselves. It was fair enough, since this race that had got nothing from them, was giving them everything back. 

Keith was nervous, he so desperately wanted his mind to relax, but instead his senses were on overdrive. His head jerked every time someone walked through the door, his feet wouldn't stop tapping against the floor as he waited, and waited for Lance to return to him. 

"He'll be back soon," Shiro reassured, patting Keith on the shoulder before walking to help Coran with tasks that would have usually been occupied by Lance. 

* * *

 

He looked down to his hands with a confused look on his face, even after the long discussion with the towns people, Lance didn't understand what had went on. Well, he supposed that he would have understood less if he hadn't had known the language (Allura told them once that there was only two main languages of the universe, English and another language that Lance couldn't remember the name of, but now could apparently speak and understand).  

His hands were a dark red (like the rest of his body), his nails a deep blue and light yellow freckles adorned everywhere but the palms of his hands. Carefully, he moved his hand to rub at his ears, his mouth curling into an embarrassed smile as he realised that he had more flappy skin at his ear lobes. 

Silently, he moved his hand from his ear to the front of the castle, his hand an inch away from knocking (did he have to knock?). His lips pressed down onto each other as he thought about the note left in Blue, he wondered whether anyone had salvaged it, he wondered if anyone had given it to Keith. 

"Well, It won't hurt to check will it? Look, I don't know what you guys were like without me, but I'm pretty sure you'll all be happier with Lance arou-" A girl chirped before stopping adruptly, her head tilting to the side like she was trying to figure something out. 

Lance didn't know who this girl was, but she immediately put a good impression on him. Flattery would get you everywhere. 

"Are you Lance?" She asked, tucking a few stray hairs behind her ears. 

"Yeah, I don't want to be rude or anything but who-" Lance started, before being cut off. 

"Maria. Oh, sorry, I have a habit of bursting in too quickly in a conversation," The girl told him, her face brightening up a light shade of pink, and in response Lance blushes too. 

"Wow, that's really amazing," Maria exclaims as Lance blushes more, she's studying him with her eyes and Lance feels as if he's being attacked by a bunch of scientists and not a girl who is now apparently apart of their little group (was Lance apart of it anymore?). 

"What? That I'm so handsome?" Lance tells her on instinct, while thinking back to when Hunk asked him if boosting himself was a coping mechanism for every possible problem. Lance didn't know how to answer him back then, and he's not sure he could answer him back now either. 

"No, you blush orange," She told him with a couple of laughs, just as Pidge burst through the door, a million of papers crowding their hands. 

"Lance," Pidge stated, pushing their glasses to their nose. They looked mournful, sad and utterly relieved at the same time, and Lance wonders why, he wasn't that good of a teammate, or even a pilot (he'd never admit these things of course). Pidge shouldn't seem so relieved to have him back, in fact they should be sighing into their hands. 

"You're red," They continued, grabbing his arm and dragging him inside. He didn't really know whether they were referring to his skin tone or the orange colour on his cheeks. 

"Like fire? Wow, what a smooth way of saying I'm hot Pidge, I like it," Lance found himself saying before he was roughly thrown onto a chair, which already had a person on it. 

"Oi Pidge, I wasn't aware you liked it rough," Lance continued, starting to rest his hands on his waist confidently before Pidge pulled him into a hug. 

"Don't die again, we all got annoyed with each other rather than you," Pidge announced, pulling themselves away from Lance to give him an innocent smirk (Lance didn't really know how that worked but it did). 

And for a minute, Lance is shocked. He hadn't realised he was that important, to anything really. He didn't really believe he was a savior of the universe either, it seemed like a dream when Blue opened up to him. He remembers waking in the middle of the night, pinching at his arm just to check that it was real, that he was needed. He was only warming up to the fact that he was needed, let alone wanted. 

"If you die again, I'll kill you myself," Keith mumbles from behind him and suddenly Lance is too aware of the fact that he is sitting in Keith's lap. He doesn't even question Keith's logic, or do anything but let his cheeks turn a bright orange. 

Lance freezes as arms wrap around his middle, and a head rests at his shoulder, his torn jacket slowly absorbing soft tears. His stomach sizzles with affection as his body relaxes, and when he blinks, Pidge has disappeared and it's just him and Keith. 

"Did you, err, receive a letter of some sort?" Lance asks, it's incredibly obvious but he's flustered and Keith's flustered and he needs to know. He needs to know what to do to reassure Keith, to make him stop crying because Lance can't handle it much longer. 

"Yeah, I hate it," Keith mumbles and Lance feels his bones freezing and locking into positions he can't control. 

"It sounded as if it was a last resort, to tell me, I mean. I hated that. I would have, I would have-" Keith babbles on, trying to find the words that complete the sentence that has been rattling his brain for months. 

"Killed me?" Lance asks, and Keith's not sure if he's joking or not and decides he doesn't want to think about it. Instead, he opts for actions rather than words, and with a pink face, he presses a light kiss to Lance's orange cheeks. 

"Oh," Lance stutters after a second, while Keith settles at his shoulder again. He looks up to Lance's hair, taken aback a little when he sees that it's a bright colour of orange, and lets himself wonder whether he had orange hairs all over now, or if it was just his head. 

"I can't believe I'm an alien now," Lance says with a laugh, and Keith joins in.

**Author's Note:**

> nICE FIRE COLOURS LANCE


End file.
